


Five Outfits that Laverne and Lenny Shared

by Missy



Category: Laverne & Shirley (TV)
Genre: F/M, Humor, Kid Fic, Missing Scene, Morning After, Romance, Sharing Clothes, Slow Burn, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:21:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24137281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: Clothing Sharing: The Fanfic
Relationships: Laverne DeFazio/Lenny Kosnowski
Comments: 8
Kudos: 7





	1. One Bandanna

Lenny was six when he sprained his ankle in the middle of gym class. He would remember the pain, looking back, mostly, and being propped up against a brick wall. Someone got him ice, frozen in a Dixie cup with a wad of brown paper towel wrapped over it, and he sat still, pressing it to the swelling, his bottom lip stuck out in pain and concentration.

He wouldn’t cry over this in public. He’d come to learn that if he did, no one would care. In the end, no one really noticed that he’d been hurt – not even Squiggy, who couldn’t leverage his pain into something greater.

It was Laverne who approached him. “Hey, are you all right, Len?”

“Oh sure. Ain’t nothing I can’t handle.” He’d gotten way worse from his mom, but he didn’t have to tell her that.

Laverne nodded. “Let me help you up,” she said. Lenny had forgotten how strong she was – when he offered her his hand, she leveraged him to his feet with one tug.

But Lenny couldn’t balance on just one leg. She took the bandanna she’d had looped around her neck and handed it over. “It’s too warm,” she said. ‘And you’re gonna need something to keep your foot propped up.” She helped him tie a rudimentary split, one that would be good enough until his Pop helped him fix it after night shift.

“Gee,” he said. The thanks never came from him. He was too stunned.

She never collected that scarf.

He kept it around for a very long time. It was proof that someone out there cared about him.


	2. One Pair of Gloves

Laverne didn’t intend to ask Lenny for anything – didn’t want anything from him, so she insisted, in her very best Barbara Stanwyck voice. He was…a lot. Too much of a lot of things. Wild, crazy, out of control. He wasn’t quite the reform school type, but he hung out with a weird crowd.

If he were anyone but Lenny, she’d actually find his behavior kind of weirdly charming.

Instead, she found herself hanging out at the punchbowl at their junior prom. Squiggy was out with Eleanor, and they made an odd combination in their short stoutness. Shirley had Carmine, naturally, and Lenny – well, he’d come stag like Hector Kestenbaum and had spent most of the dance trying to peek up the skirts of their classmates. 

He was so weird.

“We should grease his wingtips,” Anne Marie said. She’d come with half the football team as her date, since she was Anne Marie and knew no limits of propriety nor generosity. 

“Nah, he’d probably break his legs. Then he’d be on the floor and could see everyone’s underpants,” Laverne pointed out.

“Yeah!” said Anne Marie. “I’m gonna go outside. The boys on the team said they needed my help practicing.”

“It’s pitch dark out there,” Laverne said. 

Anne Marie just grinned and headed outside.

Laverne pouted, watching her go. “Boy, I wish I were brave like her. Instead of going to the dance with…” She saw her cousin Vito turn his eyelids inside out and sighed. Then she sipped another cup of punch. At least Hector and Lenny were having fun – their own kind of fun. The more she thought about how the two of THEM were allowed to be happy and she sat there, miserable in her prom dress, the easier it was to conjure tears. 

“Laverne?” Lenny’s high, squeaky voice pierced her eardrum and she cringed. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she grumbled, staring at her cousin. “You wouldn’t understand, Len.” He might know just what it’s like being lonely, but not being the only girl at junior prom without a date. She should’ve asked Anne Marie for one of her football players, she’d had enough of them.

“You want my lucky handkerchief?” 

“God, no!” He looked crestfallen. She wiped her eyes on her bare arm and Lenny, awkwardly, reached out for her left hand.

This was nice. Weirdly comforting, too. But then again, being with Lenny was weirdly comfortable by definition of the word.

“Hey Laverne!” Vito yelled suddenly, spoiling the moment. “Wanna go for malteds? Got an hour before I take you back to your Pop.”

Laverne flushed. She let go of Lenny’s hand, and she realized he was watching her closely then, standing beside the refreshment table. “Here,” Lenny said abruptly, and let go of her hand. He reached into the front pocket of his cheap Sunday suit and pulled out a pair of gloves. “They’re a little big, but you can wear them home,” he said. 

“Uh,” She looked at her bare hands. It was freezing cold outside; that Anne Marie wanted to conduct football practice, so to speak, at all was an amazement at all. “Thanks, Len. I’ll leave ‘em by your locker tomorrow.”

“Sure. Get home safe,” he said. 

She smiled, stuffing her hands into the too-big gloves, her fingers wiggling with much space at the tip of each finger, taking a minute to bid Shirley and Terri goodbye before Vito led her away. 

Laverne looked over her shoulder just once and saw Lenny watching her quietly, his eyes wide and thoughtful.


	3. One Winter Coat

“Can I have my winter coat back?”

The question startled Laverne out of her reverie. She had Lenny’s winter coat in her hand – his blue teeshirt, too – and was two inches from the boys’ front door with the gear when he spoke up.

“Yeah,” she said, handing everything over with a thrust of her arms. “Sorry for taking ‘em without asking.”

“S’OK. If Hector did something like that to me, you’d do the same for me, right?” 

Laverne pasted on a smile. She would, wouldn’t she? Well, Lenny had proposed to her when she was in dire need – and the idea of making him suffer when she’d had the chance to do so had never appealed to her. “Yeah.” She shrugged. “I didn’t know,” she said.

“Huh?” Lenny asked, shaking out his winter jacket.

“That we’d fit into your clothes,” she admitted. “We were hoping we would, but we didn’t know for sure, y’know? I mean, you’re a little taller than me.” She didn’t want to tell him that it felt comfortable in his jacket, that she felt at home wearing it, too. Maybe because it smelled like Lenny it reminded her of safety, and made her feel at home.

“Huh. Lucky break.” Lenny kept staring at his teeshirt.

“Yeah,” Laverne said. 

“Hey,” he said, as she turned for the stairwell.

“What?” she asked.

“You can borrow my stuff any time. Just ask, okay?”

“Yeah,” she smiled. “Thanks, Len.” Lenny offering to let her wear his clothing whenever she wanted to wear them was only the third weirdest thing that had happened that morning.

Laverne took that as a victory.


	4. One Pair of Pedal Pushers and a Blouse

“Here ya go,” Lenny said, handing back the multicolored floral blouse with all care. “Your pedal pushers and your blouse.” Last weekend, he and Squiggy had volunteered to act as substitute Angora Debs for the evening while Laverne and Shirley tried to talk the latest gaggle of girls – who had turned the social club into some kind of street gang – out of continuing to commit a string of ugly crimes. Thankfully, he’d gotten out of the encounter without beating a teenager’s face in, but he and Squiggy had run into their own problems later.

“Thanks,” she said, carefully folding both back up and stuffing them under her arm. “You didn’t crease the L, did you?”

“Nah,” he said. “Watch out for any barbecue sauce stains, those sailors know how to play fresh.”

Laverne shook her head. “Boy do I know it!” He winced, the mental image of himself and Squiggy failing to defend themselves against the brawny advances of their sailor swains floating through his head. He was lucky they hadn’t ended up with their own faces punched in, but instead they’d managed to come away from the night with a pretty nice dinner and memories of a decent enough movie. The girls had found the whole incident amusing, probably because of what the boys had put them through with their make-out attempts on multiple other occasions. 

Laverne was decent enough not to notice his pain. “Thanks for helping me out with the girls,” she said.

“Any time,” Lenny said. “It was the least we could do for you after Shirl went out on a date with Squiggy’s Uncle Albrecht.”

“Boy, she’s still mad about that one!” Laverne laughed. “She said he chewed with his mouth wide open and kept making her swear allegiance to the German flag!”

Lenny chuckled. “Yeah, he’s old-fashioned like that.” He shook his head. “I think he was one of those chandeliers for the old German king before the whole family got kicked out of the country.”

“Wow,” Laverne remarked.

“Yeah,” Lenny echoed quietly. He watched the cursive L sparkle from the crevice between Laverne’s arm and chest and wondered again at the marvelous fact that they could fit into one another’s wardrobe, like a cheek in the palm of a saint.

His hand lingered on the doorframe as he watched her face. “So,” he said. “Lemme know if you need another favor, all right?”

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “We owe you big.”

He wriggled his eyebrows at her and tried to lean against the frame, projecting casual interest and macho self-assuredness – at least until he missed his palm and managed to almost crash into the side of the door. “Yeah? Merry go round double make-outs at the Madison County Fair big?” he asked, righting himself.

She smirked at him, and then patted the back of his hand like he was a little boy. “Don’t push it, Len.”

Her fingers brushed the back of his hand as she let him go. The touch lingered in the back of Lenny’s mind, a sweet siren’s song calling him on and on, into the future and outside of the limits that he had imposed upon himself.


	5. One Blue-Sleeved Baseball Shirt

He’s singing at the top of his lungs.

Laverne groans and rolls over, toward the sound of his voice. She’s as naked as she was the night before, but also a little sticky. She needs a shower, and to brush her teeth. But she needs breakfast even more.

And to pee. She does that and washes her hands before she heads downstairs, grabbing his blue-sleeved baseball jersey on the way down.

She tugs it over her head, smelling his skin on the fabric, his cologne. When she smoothes it down her thighs the hemline barely brushes the top of them – she’s fairly sure he’ll be able to see the shadow of her pubic hair between her legs, not that he would raise a finger to complain about that.

He’d raise his fingers for many things, but not to scold her about her nudity, Laverne snickered to herself.

She rounded the corner and saw the kitchenette – where Lenny was currently stirring up a breakfast stark naked except for Shirley's old frilled apron strapped across his chest as a protective guard against splattering grease, all the while singing “Hound Dog.” He whirled around mid-gesture and froze dead in his tracks at the sight of her. The impulsive, beery evening that had set them on this course had led to the fond awkward of their morning after. Neither of them knew what to do.

Then black smoke began to pour from the frying pan behind him. He sniffed the air and she pointed to the stove behind him. Lenny cursed and flung the whole mess into her kitchen sink before it could start a fire.

“Sorry, Laverne,” he said sheepishly. “I was trying to surprise you.”

She smirked. “You were singing a little too loud to surprise me there, Len.”

He gave her a sheepish smile and rubbed his elbow. They stared each other down, not knowing where the next step of this dance would take them.

“Len…” she started saying, without knowing what she wanted to tell him.

“Vernie, can we talk about this a little later?” he asked. “I mean I really wanna talk about it – honestly I do – but I was hoping we could have some pancakes and come a couple of times first…”

“…You can come more than once in a morning?” he gave her a nonchalant shrug and she closed the distance between them. They kissed until he walked her backwards to the staircase she’d just descended. 

They paused on the stairs, and his fingertips skirted along the edge of the hem, tickling her pubic hair. “Hey, Laverne?”

“What?” she asked.

“As great as you look in my shirt?”

“Yeah?” 

He tugged it up over her head and deposited it over the railing, on the living room floor. “You look so much better without it.”

She tugged him to her bedroom by his apron strings, wondering if she’d end up wearing his ring. But that was a question for another day.


End file.
